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Pro-Choicers Join Anti-War Activists to Protest the President
The Anti-Bush Campaign Kicks Off
by Sarah Ferguson
June 25 - July 1, 2003


In what looked like a mini dress rehearsal for the cacophony of
dissent that's expected to hit the streets of New York City during
next summer's GOP convention, nearly 3,000 demonstrators gathered on
Seventh Avenue to protest President Bush as he presided over a
$2,000-a-plate fundraiser inside midtown's Sheraton Hotel on Monday.
Vowing to deliver Bush a hearty unwelcome, the demonstrators clamored
inside the metal pens that police had strung up along the west side of
Seventh Avenue between 49th and 54th streets, denouncing everything
from the war in Iraq and tax cuts for the rich to the Bush
administration's heavy-fisted assaults on abortion, immigrants, and
civil rights.

"In the same way that this fundraiser is a kickoff for Bush's
reelection campaign, this may be the kickoff for a wave of protest
across the country against Bush," said Bill Dobbs, spokesperson for
the antiwar coalition United for Peace and Justice.

The size of the demo did not match the heft of Bush's campaign
machine, which raked in a record-breaking $4 million at the event
hosted by the titans of Wall Street and New York's real estate
industry. But organizers felt they succeeded in voicing the concerns
of many ordinary New Yorkers who feel the Bush administration has
declared war against them.

"President Bush, you've come here to fill up your campaign cup,"
shouted Carla Goldstein of Planned Parenthood from a makeshift podium.
"We've come to say enough is enough! Enough lies, enough hypocrisy,
enough nominating right-wing judges to fulfill your conservative
agendas, enough appointing those who would decide when woman can and
cannot have a child. President Bush, we've had enough!"

Indeed, the fact that the protest was initiated by Planned Parenthood
of New York City, which then invited United for Peace to help swell
its ranks, may signal the potential for a new and broader coalition of
anti-Bush forces to mobilize over the next year.

Planned Parenthood did not demonstrate at the last GOP convention and
was not active in the antiwar marches over the last year. But
activists say Bush's impending approval of the so-called
"partial-birth" abortion ban, which effectively outlaws abortions
beyond the second trimester regardless of the threat to a woman's
health, has forced the pro-choice movement to take a more direct role
in campaigning to unseat him. "We want to stop marginalizing issues of
reproductive rights and bring them into the larger fold by uniting a
larger coalition of groups who can speak to social-justice issues,"
says Planned Parenthood's Miriam Gerace.

Similarly, antiwar groups, many of which receded from public eye in
the wake of Bush's hastily proclaimed "victory" in Iraq, say they are
looking to extend their reach beyond foreign policy. "We're trying to
connect the dots," says Leslie Cagan of United for Peace. "Bush and
his administration are a multi-issue target, so we have to be a
multi-issue movement."

But the effort to bring together a diverse array of people and issues
was once again hampered by the NYPD's cumbersome protest pens, which
balkanized the different groups into competing islands of dissent.
Police sealed off the area directly in front of the Sheraton between
52nd and 53rd streets, forcing demonstrators to gather in pens to the
north and south. At 50th Street, several dozen backers of the
hard-left group International ANSWER chanted in support of Venezuela's
besieged president Hugo Chavez and railed against the Bush
Administration's imperialist adventures in Iraq. Meanwhile, at 54th
Street a coalition of immigration-rights groups decried Bush's "terror
campaign" against immigrants next to a small group of pro-Israel
supporters angered by the Bush Administration's "roadmap" for peace in
Palestine.

Many protesters complained they were unable to enter the pens or
forced to detour to Broadway to join their protest groups. At one
point several protesters toppled a metal barrier at 51st Street in an
effort to merge with the other demonstrators. Police waded
aggressively into the crowd to make arrests, prompting chants of
"Shame!" and "Arrest Bush!" Seven people were arrested for disorderly
conduct.

Investigative reporter and author Greg Palast, whose anti-Bush salvo,
The Best Money Democracy Can Buy, has made him a lefty celebrity,
found himself addressing a tiny crowd mobilized by the anti-Bush group
Voter March in a pen near 54th Street. "They're trying to spread out
the demonstration so that people inside paying two grand for their
pudding won't puke when they see the reality of what's going on out
here," Palast complained. "I just got in town from London, where my
documentary exposing the Bush family fortunes is airing on primetime
television, but here in the U.S. it's like I'm relegated to samizdat
reporting. It's like there's an electronic Berlin Wall against
covering this stuff," he said, gesturing to the satellite news trucks
swarming around the Sheraton.

But the folks on the street seemed to have little trouble connecting
the issues. Antiwar placards demanding "Where are the Weapons of Mass
Destruction?" and "End King Geoge's Reign of Terror!" jostled freely
with pro-choice banners and signs denouncing Bush's "War on Women."
Many in the crowd said they were outraged that the Republican party
continues to invoke the attacks of 9/11 as a rallying cry for Bush's
presidency. "I feel like Bush coming to New York is especially
hypocritical because he's done nothing for this city," said Sarah
Beretczki, a 29-year-old illustrator from Brooklyn who sported a sign
that read, "My Bush Sheds Its Own Blood."

And many demonstrators vowed to be out in force next August,
regardless of the NYPD's expected clampdown. "I have never been this
politically disturbed in my entire life," said Gloria Charny, 74, of
Westchester. "Bush has got all the power in his hands, and the
American public is lapping it up without even realizing what it
means."

"cyber" <georgekspam@humboldt1.com> wrote in message
news:georgekspam-47917B.15363228062003@corp.supernews.com...
> In article <a8Wdnf4cIooVQGCjRTvU2Q@rapidnet.com>,
> "Sarah" <newsgroupsdon'tspam@virtualnow.mailshell.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > In what looked like a mini dress rehearsal for the cacophony of
> > dissent that's expected to hit the streets of New York City
>
>
>
> g wants to know where da shrub will appear in the future.
> and why not post in alt.impeach.bush NG ?
> Bush says that he does not need approval from the U.N.to wage
> war.

He doesn't. He only needs the approval of Congress.

Raz